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Dowd: Will Trump be the sage one?

From left, John Bolton, the national security adviser, shares a word with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as Vice President Mike Pence looks on during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House in June 2018. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
From left, John Bolton, the national security adviser, shares a word with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as Vice President Mike Pence looks on during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House in June 2018. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) From left, John Bolton, the national security adviser, shares a word with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as Vice President Mike Pence looks on during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House in June 2018. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

By Maureen Dowd / The New York Times 4 min read

WASHINGTON – Only one person can save us from the dangerous belligerent in the White House.

And that person is Donald Trump.

How screwed up is that?

Will the president let himself be pushed into a parlous war by John Bolton, who once buoyed the phony case on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Or will Trump drag back his national security adviser and the other uber hawks from the precipice of their fondest, bloodiest desire – to attack Iran?

Can Cadet Bone Spurs set Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, straight that winning a war with Iran would not merely entail “two strikes, the first strike and the last strike”? Holy cakewalk.